How to plan recurring weekly, biweekly and monthly routes
Service businesses visit the same customers on a rhythm. Here's how to keep one master list and pull each day's route out of it in a few clicks.
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The short answer
Updated
To plan recurring routes, keep every customer in one saved list with a field that says when they're due, such as Service day or Week. Lite Route Planner doesn't repeat routes on a schedule: each day you filter the map by that field, lasso the stops into a route and press Optimize. Saved addresses are reused for unlimited routes, so planning the same customers every week doesn't use up your plan.
How recurring routes work in Lite
Some planners save a route and repeat it on a schedule. Lite doesn't. A route is a plan for one day: you drive it, mark the stops, and complete it, and each visit stays in the stop's history.
What repeats is your customer list. Every customer is a saved address with fields you choose, like Service day, Frequency or Week. Building Tuesday's route means showing only Tuesday's customers, drawing a loop around them and pressing Optimize.
That turns out to suit service work. A new customer joins the right day when you set one field. A customer who pauses drops out when you clear it. And every week's order is worked out for the customers actually on the list, not the ones who were there in spring.
Set up recurring routes in Lite
- 1
Add a schedule column to your list
In your spreadsheet, add Service day (Mon to Fri). For customers you see less than weekly, add Frequency and Week too. The route planning template has a Service day column ready.
- 2
Import once
Import the sheet and tick the schedule columns so they come in as custom fields. From then on, add new customers in Lite and set their fields there.
- 3
Show one day's customers
Open Filters and tick Tue under Service day. For biweekly or monthly customers, add a second filter for this week, such as Week A or Week 2. Filters combine, so only stops matching both stay on the map.
- 4
Lasso and optimize
Make a route, draw a loop around the stops still showing (hidden ones aren't picked up), set the start to your shop, and press Optimize.
- 5
Check the day's total
Save to see drive time, time at stops and miles. If the day runs long, take off the stops that can wait and catch them tomorrow.
- 6
Complete it, then repeat next week
When the day's done, complete the route. Visits stay in each stop's history, and next week you build the route the same way in a minute.
A pool route's master list
A weekly pool service with a few every-other-week and monthly accounts. Frequency and Week say who's due; Service day says when.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | |
| 1 | Customer | Address | City | Service day | Frequency | Week | Time at stop (min) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Alvarez | 7421 E Palo Verde Dr | Scottsdale, AZ | Tue | Weekly | 25 | |
| 3 | Sunridge Condos | 1180 W Saguaro Bend | Tempe, AZ | Tue | Weekly | 50 | |
| 4 | Nakamura | 2964 N Desert Willow Ln | Mesa, AZ | Wed | Biweekly | A | 30 |
| 5 | Ferris | 455 S Copper Sky Ct | Chandler, AZ | Wed | Biweekly | B | 30 |
| 6 | Okoye | 8812 E Granite Wash Rd | Gilbert, AZ | Thu | Monthly | 3 | 35 |
Week is a text field, so the filter lists every value it finds. Tick A on A weeks, B on B weeks, and 3 in the third week of the month. Weekly customers leave it blank.
Master route or daily route?
A master route is your whole customer list in the order you work through it over a cycle, a week or a month. A daily route is the slice of it you drive today. Paper and spreadsheet operations usually keep a master route and cut it into days by hand.
Take a pest control tech with about 75 monthly customers. Split the service area into four zones and give each a week: north in week 1, east in week 2, and so on, about 19 stops a week. Each week's zone becomes one long day or two shorter ones. In Lite, the saved customers are the master list and Week is a field. On the first Tuesday, filter to Week 1, lasso and optimize: that's the daily route.
Why not keep a fixed master order? Because customers come and go. A new account in the east zone would mean someone working out where it fits in the sequence. Optimizing the week's group puts it in a sensible place automatically. Keep the list fixed and let the order be worked out fresh.
How to tag each schedule
Use the simplest field that tells you who's due.
Weekly
One field: Service day. A lawn crew mowing the same streets every Tuesday needs nothing else.
Every other week
Service day plus Week A or B. Filter to Tuesday and A, and the following week to Tuesday and B.
Monthly
Service day plus Week 1 to 4. A monthly pest or filter-change customer shows up on one Tuesday in four.
Quarterly or seasonal
Skip the calendar math. Color the map by last visit and filter to over 2 months ago, or keep a Next due date field and filter by date range.
Callbacks and one-off jobs
They're just stops. Add them as they come in and click them onto whichever day's route passes closest.
Two crews or more
Add a Crew field, or assign each day's routes to drivers on Business and color the map by driver to see who covers what.